Neighborhood Nature 12-16-11

Chances are that if you are reading this you either live in Barnstable or used to live here and you know our town is a big ole neighborhood with lots of smaller neighborhoods within.

Mary Richmond

Chances are that if you are reading this you either live in Barnstable or used to live here and you know our town is a big ole neighborhood with lots of smaller neighborhoods within. I’m not just talking about the villages, streets and shopping centers, either. We have a lot of wildlife habitat here in town though nowhere what used to be here when those of us of certain ages grew up (raise your hand if you remember going to sleep to the sounds of whip-poor-wills calling on summer nights in Hyannis…) and in many ways each of those habitats is a neighborhood of its own. Like our own neighborhoods, there aren’t any real boundaries and many things and lives overlap all over the place.

At this time of year our neighborhoods are looking a little empty and gray. We can see where the catbird that woke us up at dawn each day nested as well as where the deer and rabbits were congregating. Without all that cover the leaves and grasses afford we can see the nests and the scat left behind and a whole new world of stories is opened up to us. We can see deer paths in the fields and underbrush and we can see the little piles of pinecone scales known as middens that squirrels leave behind. We can see the summer nests of hawks, crows and squirrels and the holes the noisy woodpeckers made as well as the dens of coyotes, foxes and otter if we know how and where to look. We might find cocoons and webs and little stashes of seeds and acorns and if we open up old birdhouses to look inside we might find more than we counted on, like a whole bunch of little sleeping mice that are no longer sleeping.

It may seem quieter out there and in many ways it is, but it is still far from silent. Listen for the morning conversations of crows, the calls of hawks overhead and the hooting of owls for all can be heard in these days of fading light. Dawn and dusk are the best times to spot our native mammals but many are quite secretive and are hard to find even then. Determination, quiet, and good attention to detail and signs will help you find them, however, for they are there, often a lot closer than we think.

If you have bird feeders, take a peek at them at night. Did you know that mice, raccoons, possums and flying squirrels frequent feeders at night? Not all, of course, and not all the time, but more than you might imagine. People are often surprised to learn we have flying squirrels here on the Cape and that is because they are mostly nocturnal, very shy and not as brassy and bold as their gray and red cousins. They do come into feeders at night for seeds, so if you live in a wooded area you might check it out.

Since the darkness lasts a lot longer than the night these days this is a great time to go out and look and listen for owls. Again, there are a lot more owls here on the Cape than people think. The great horned owls are the ones that really “hoot” and are the ones most people are familiar with but we have other owls here as well. The small screech owl is also quite active and noisy but is more likely to be heard giving a bit of a “whinny” call or a full “screech” than a hooting noise.

If you’re on Sandy Neck these days, keep an eye out for snowy owls. They are being seen around us though I have yet to see a report of one on the Cape. If you can’t wait for one to show up on Sandy Neck, check out Duxbury Beach. There’s been one, if not two, there for a few weeks now.

Just think, soon it will be winter and the best part of that is that the daylight will actually begin to lengthen as the calendar changes. It might be getting colder, but at least it will be getting lighter. As we get closer to the holidays, don’t forget some of the best gifts around are just outside our doors in nature and the best part is, they’re free. Happy Holidays, everyone.